A Touch of Rebecca...
Exclusive Interview with Director Rebecca Bagley Cook

Henry: "A Touch of Fate" is the story of a group of people bought together by fate, finding love and friendship when they are bought together by a tragic accident. How long did you work on the story before it got made? Is any of the plot based on personal experience?

Rebecca : The Chester Story (US TITLE) was the first script I ever attempted to write. I began working on it just out of college when I was an intern at Touchstone. As I learned the craft of screenwriting, primarily through trial and error and doing professional coverage freelance, I molded the story over time. The film went into production six years later, after many, many rewrites. The plot was inspired by the desire to interweave many lives at once, a study of how one event can affect many others. The plot wasn't based on personal experience, but the message behind the film, to embrace misfortune if you can reframe the experience and find something positive as a result, came from having experienced the loss of two of my friends while they were still young.

H: Just so I can get a better insight into the film-making process / evolution, what sort of changes were made over the process of the “many, many rewrites”? Was the original film anything like the one we now see?

R: The original film is very much like the final version, however instead of shooting in New Hampshire, we shot in North Carolina, and over the years, I became a better writer and would work on my dialogue and story points.

H: Although you have a terrific cast in "A Touch of Fate", you must have been very pleased to have a big name like Teri Hatcher come on board? Was she good to work with?

R: it was exciting to work with an actress who's work I had admired in two days in the valley, and she was a great deal of fun, in addition to be quite bright and articulate about her choices.

H: It says in one of the press releases that she’s currently developing her own sitcom for NBC. Did she add any of her own wit to the film?

R: By nature, Teri is hysterical, she delivers comedy extremely well.

H: "A Touch of Fate" is your biggest film to date, and will shortly get a large-scale release in the US. You must be extremely pleased about this?

R: I wish I could agree that it will be getting a large scale release, but by nature, the Chester story is a small film, and it is difficult to give indies large releases, we are trying to book the film in Boston and New York at art house theaters- we premiered in Wilmington, NC. I will celebrate heartily when we book the next two releases.

H: Well, it will probably be one of those must-have DVDs when you hit the big time J Speaking of DVDs, do you have any plans to release the movie when the Cinema showings are done? Indie film directors do have a knack for making great DVD transitions, not to mention some great extra features on the disc!

R: Thank you for your confidence! We are in talks with television and home video/dvd deals now, but won't know more about that until we have concluded theatrical bookings and/or premiered on TV !!!

H: I notice that "A Touch of Fate" has been renamed for international release from it's original title "A Chester Story". What was the reason behind this? I can only assume it has to do with the fact Chester is not a massively famous place on an international scale..?

R: I believe the distributor wanted to create a television friendly title, to draw in viewers-at least that is what they told me, I have never been happy with the change.

H: You have a great wealth of talent working with you, including as I said a brilliant cast. I've heard it mentioned that you like working with the same people in more than one movie - much like Kevin Smith - do you intend to work with some of "A Touch of Fate"'s cast again in your next film, Shooting Livien?

R: I would love to work with all of them again if I could! I will definitely see some of them again for Shooting Livien!

H: Your first film, "Nipply Ray" is a very dark story set in Brooklyn one night. Where did you get the idea for the story, and would you ever expand it into a full-length movie if the opportunity presented itself?

R: I would love to expand Nipply Ray into a full length film, it excites me to work with darkness, and by comparison, to something sunnier with Chester., but I do prefer the darker stories- I believe the idea for the short evolved from immersing myself in my Brooklyn neighborhood, and studying the characters I saw each day, from there, well, I’m not really sure how the third nipple and tragedy came into play, strange things happen in the mind's of writers!

H: All of your films to date have been both written and directed by yourself. If there comes a point in your career where you have to decide between the two, which direction do you feel your future lies in?

R: I hesitate to say this, because I hope I won't have to chose, but ultimately, writing is my forte, and my directing is still in the process of growing.

H: Which film makers have influenced you and your career so far, and what sort of films do you like to watch in your time off?

R: my first choice for films is either independents or foreign- I lived in Paris for a time, so I enjoy French films, and am equally fascinated by British films, I love the texture of the working class and the Victorian age, which seem to dominate the market- I am extremely excited to see 28 days later. I think Danny Boyle is brilliant. I'm a big fan of Nicole Holefcener, Steven Soderbergh and Baz Luhrman.

H: All your films have been showed widely on the festival circuit. Which is your favourite film festival experience to date?

R: Of course coven of the arts, where my short film won an award! :)

H: Your next movie, Shooting Livien is the story of a man who bares an uncanny resemblance to John Lennon. Can you tell me a bit more about the story? How far are you into the project at the moment?

R: we have been in casting and development for almost a year- we are likely going into production by late September, but the process of fundraising is lengthy, particularly in this economic climate, so it has been time consuming.

H: Speaking of the current climate, what is your opinion of film makers like Michael Moore?

R: I have to see Bowling for Columbine, I am intrigued, but am not a fan of a filmmaker using an award ceremony for political purposes when it is designed to commend art, not policy.

H: If you could work with one leading man and one leading lady on a future film, who would you choose and why?

R: great question. How do you chose? I'd give my right arm to work with Cate Blanchett, and my left to work with Billy Crudup.(knock on wood, because I do currently enjoy the use of both arms) they are both chameleons and resonate absolute truth so in every performance that I often forget they are merely portraying a character in a work of fiction, I lose the sense of film watching and become infatuated with their performances at times!

H: In the Alanis Morriset song "Ironic", she sings of a man who wins the lottery, and then dies the next day. This is pretty similar to what happens to the character Kenny in "A Touch of Fate". So, in light of this, please pick one of the following lines (all from the same song) which you feel would make a good movie, and explain a) how you came to your decision, b) who you would cast in the lead roles, c) how the movie ends :)

1) "It's a death row pardon two minutes too late..."
2) "It's a free ride when you've already paid..."
3) "He waited his whole damn life to take that flight, And as the plane crashed down he thought 'Well, isn't this nice...'"
4) "It's like 10,000 spoons when all you need is a knife..."
5) "A no-smoking sign on your cigarette break..."

R: That’s pretty funny, I never made the connection to the alanis song, who, by the way, I think is brilliant and who I played on my cd player every day as I drove around la, paying my dues as a pa, so these lines are extremely a propos to my creative sensibility!

I chose number one

I have mixed feelings about the death penalty, and what better way to explore that than to create a film based on the premise that an innocent life should have been spared. The intense emotional aspect of two minutes to late applies to so many tragedies. If I had gone to the doctor a month sooner, if I hadn't crossed at that light, if he hadn't gone to get ice cream on the way home. Life is a series of random events that at one time or another fall into line to create something tangible and irreversible. Imagine discussing this theme in the context of a prison story where you don't know if the lawyer believes his client, if the judge has lost someone and sentences one to the death penalty for retribution, if someone made a mistake, a deadly mistake, which now results in the the collapse of their family? Imagine the guilt of a state who stood behind the death penalty for a man and then found out he was innocent? Imagine the guilt of the man who pushed the button? Guilt can be a costly, deadly thing in and of itself. I wouldn't know how the movie ends until the story began, but you laid the groundwork for an interesting creative exercise!

Based on the above question, you now know I'd cast Billy Crudup as the lead!

Thanks for the great questions!